i'll know my name as it's called again
by alinaandalion
Summary: She is one or the other until the curse breaks and she is both. She is a woman and a princess, armed with careful cutting words and freedom. She is both and neither. She can choose now.


"I look in the mirror.

And it's finally me there, and I look like no one I've ever seen before."

— _Dare Me_ by Megan Abbott

* * *

At the age of five, Abigail watches her father turn her mother into gold.

She remembers screaming and screaming and screaming until someone carried her away.

Her father never touched her again.

* * *

After she grows older, Abigail gathers the details of that time and pieces them together:

Midas' gift of golden touch was meant to be a gift, not a curse. A blessing from the fairies to save the kingdom from starvation by allowing him to create gold out of anything he laid his right hand upon.

It was supposed to be temporary. Until he forgot about his enchanted hand and touched his queen's cheek, and it was too late.

And once it was done, once he had lost his wife and queen, Midas begged the fairies to take their gift back. They refused and told him that his greed had turned their blessing into a curse that he would have to bear for the rest of his days.

It was the imp who gave Midas his enchanted glove in exchange for the golden queen.

* * *

(Abigail is born a princess and made into a queen. She is steel and ice and fairness and kindness only when it won't cost her anything.

Kathryn isn't any of those things. She is just a girl, just a woman, who lost her mother young but never her father, who has steel in her spine but is softer, milder. Not weaker. There is a difference between weakness and kindness.

She is one or the other until the curse breaks and she is both. She is a woman and a princess, armed with careful cutting words and freedom. She is both and neither.

She can choose now.)

* * *

When they tell fairytales now, the stories act as if arranged marriages are a death sentence. Perhaps that assessment isn't completely incorrect considering the way David behaved when he was betrothed to her, but there are worse things.

After all, she had agreed when she thought him James, a spoiled prince who gambled away his kingdom's fortune. But then it had been about power. James would not make a good king, but he could be controlled and kept occupied by pretty women and hunts and balls. And she would gain a second kingdom in the process.

It wasn't her first choice (she still wept for Frederick and would give up both kingdoms in a heartbeat to have him back with her, breathing and smiling and laughing), but at least it was still a choice.

* * *

(See, the stories don't always get it right. Princes don't always save the fair maidens.

Sometimes true love's kiss doesn't work.

Sometimes the princess puts chains around her ankles herself and chooses to build her own prison.

After all, Abigail took a false prince into the woods and gave him a task so he could save himself. And while she wanted him to succeed, he could have failed and she would still win. Either way, she would be free.

Princesses can make deals all their own.)

* * *

She decides not to take back her old name. Most people do, but she keeps Kathryn for herself.

It takes awhile for others to get used to it when they call her _Abigail_ and she gently corrects them, but she doesn't give a reason when she is asked _why_.

She's learning how to keep things for herself now; generosity and kindness don't mean she has to slice her skin open and bleed whenever she is asked to. If she is needed, she can be the leader again, the princess willing to sacrifice for her people. But this world doesn't seem to have room for royalty, and even though she still has steel in her spine, it's no longer an unbearable weight.

(It may have been a curse, but she's been given so much that she thinks she can forgive having her life stolen away.

Her father reaches his hand out to her, and she doesn't flinch away. Fred holds her close and there is nothing to say that she has a duty elsewhere to someone else.

She breathes, her lungs expanding and expanding, and she is _free_.)

* * *

Sometimes she wonders if Frederick is her true love; sometimes she feels like she knows that he isn't and feels guilty for it.

But what does it matter? She _chose_ him, and that's a magic all its own, choosing to love him, choosing him again and again and again. It shouldn't be worth less.

(And yet—she still thinks about a night when she was in the hospital after being found dirty and confused behind the diner. The night Regina came to see her and stood by her bed and ran soft, shaking fingers along her cheek, brown eyes dark and wide and unsure.

"You're all right," Regina murmurs, but it feels like a question Kathryn should answer. She tries but then Regina speaks again. "You didn't deserve this. I'm so sorry."

Kathryn reaches up and touches Regina's chin, wipes away the tears making tracks through Regina's make-up. "Why are you sorry? You didn't—"

And Regina sobs, her head dipping lower, shoulders sagging, and she's so very close, and it might be the mild sedative they gave her earlier in the evening, but Kathryn tugs weakly at Regina's arm, pulls her closer. Regina's mouth is right there, right there, so Kathryn kisses her. Brushes her lips lightly against Regina's, _don't cry, I'm all right_, and the air shifts as Regina breathes against her mouth before kissing her again.

Again and again and again, and it's hungry, desperate, Kathryn's hands clutching at Regina everywhere she can think of, everywhere she dares, and she is thinking about whether she can manage to get Regina into bed beside her when Regina pulls away.

"I have to go," Regina says, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have—I'm sorry."

"Please don't leave," Kathryn whispers, holding tightly to Regina's hand. "Please."

"I'm sorry. I can't. Henry—" and she breathes out, dark hair falling into her face as she pulls away from Kathryn. "I'll come back. I promise."

Her hand slips from Kathryn's grasp, and Kathryn watches as she leaves. She cries herself to sleep.)

Fred notices when she sees Regina on the street, eyes tracking her movements, and he asks, "Have you forgiven her?"

Kathryn feels him at her back but she doesn't look away from Regina, not yet. She knows now what had happened and why; Regina had come to her and spilled every secret into her lap, leaving once she was done without asking for forgiveness. It's unfair and wrong. She still has nightmares about those days of being alone in the dark and wondering if she would make it out alive.

But she watches Regina and says, "I don't know."

Fred doesn't respond, but he takes her hand and waits until she's ready to walk away.


End file.
